Baucus white paper "hearts" the public option

by: Jay Stevens

Mon Aug 17, 2009 at 17:58:32 PM MST

The Exchange would also include a new public plan option, similar to Medicare. This option would abide by the same rules as private insurance plans participating in the Exchange (e.g., offer the same levels of benefits and set the premiums the same way). Rates paid to health care providers by this option would be determined by balancing the goals of increasing competition and ensuring access for patients to high-quality health care. A number of options could be considered to determine who runs the plan, who is eligible for it, and how to ensure that the public-private insurance competition lowers costs and improves quality. The Independent Health Coverage Council, described below, would inform these decisions.

Federal funds would be needed to start up the Exchange, but it would be self-sustaining within a few years.

Now there's the basis for an interesting question for our senior Senator, right?  

Time to jump to the high side

by: Jay Stevens

Mon Aug 17, 2009 at 11:44:15 AM MST

First, I like the analogy of the rafting trip. I agree: it's hard to change course in the middle of a rapid.

But here's the thing, I think we're already in the whitewater. The public option is the compromise, and many of us won't support a bill without it. As many as 100 House Democrats feel the way I do. Two thirds of Americans feel the way I do.

Matt wrote, "our worst case scenario this year isn't the passage of a 'bad bill.' It's the passage of no bill." I agree. Matt wrote, "I'm just saying don't cut off our noses to spite our faces." I agree. This reform is critical to the future of the Democratic party, our progressive future, and the political ambition of dozens.

Only Matt's got it backwards.

It's the moderate and conservative Democrats who are refusing the public option who need to fall in line and get on board. They need to compromise, just like we did, so we can get a bill passed. The bill will die without the public option, and activists and organizers who care about the uninsured, a community rating, and the other myriad benefits that will accompany a public option in our health insurance bill need to let their representatives in Congress know that these reforms are jeopardy. It's time to take the knives away from your noses, people.

You know, it's like when your raft hits a rock sideways in a rapid and you have do something counter-intuitive, leave your seat, and jump on the downstream side nearest the rock, the "high side." These folks need to get up out of their accustomed seat and join us at the trouble spot so our raft won't flip.

Nate Silver crunches the numbers and forecasts doom for the public option. Maybe he's right. Or maybe he's just given us a list of Democrats who we need to remind that they need to compromise if they don't want to be the end of reform, and ultimately this awesome possibility we progressives have created for ourselves...

Fresh Off the River: Some Thoughts on Health Insurance Reform

by: Matt Singer

Mon Aug 17, 2009 at 08:10:27 AM MST

I'll be honest, I was really hoping we'd have a bill out of the Finance Committee by the time we returned, even if the bill wasn't everything I wanted. The clock is ticking and we're getting closer to the point where the perfect (or even the less-than-perfect-but-damn-amazing) can easily become the enemy of the good.

There's a reason the White House is starting to hedge its bets on the public option. Frankly, near as I can tell, the message war hasn't been going that great and the votes just don't really appear to be there in the Senate (especially considering that only 43 Senators publicly say they support it; some of those "supporters" are likely to be perfectly happy to see it die).

That's not to say that the public option is dead. The Progressive Caucus's bullheadedness in the House may prove strong enough to outweigh Chuck Grassley's misguided bullheadedness in the Senate.

But we're getting to the point where we have a very difficult needle to thread and time is limited. Opponents of reform also are having an easier time right now than supporters given that supporters don't yet know exactly what we're supporting (which is a challenge).

Prior to rafting the Grand Canyon, I'd never sat at the oars much on a raft. I ended up rowing for about 2/3 of the river including almost all of the big rapids. And I learned something about hitting rapids on a river the size of the Colorado. Especially in the fast moving water of the large rapids, your ability to move directions or change position in the middle of a run is virtually impossible. You really have about two ways to impact your ability to get through the whitewater: your setup in picking your line and your skill in facing the waves and laterals coming at you and punching through them.

Prior to hitting the big water, you spend a lot of time ferrying from right to left or left to right, choosing which direction to point your boat, and then, on the big rapids, pushing forward to hit the waves and get through them quickly.

We've been lining up for this rapid for some time, but at some point, we've got to start pushing forward. The worst thing to do is to end up in the middle of a rapid trying to backferry out of it or indecisive about your line and trying to move across the river in the middle of it.

I'm not positive this is an especially apt legislative metaphor, but the parallels were striking for me. It is time to find our line, pivot into the laterals, punch through, get spun a bit, but keep the boat upright and all the passengers on-board. For the most part, we pulled that off on the Colorado. Let's see if we can do it in DC now.

Final thought: I've been a big fan of the public option for years now for a variety of reasons. I really think that the policy innovation there is one of the more brilliant things to come out of academia in a while. That said, a reform bill with key insurance regulations, a health insurance exchange, and much-needed subsidies for the purchase of health care by uninsured individuals -- these are all very much worth fighting for and significantly better than a number of proposals considered to be the left flank of the Democratic Party's serious proposals as recently as five years ago. Our worst case scenario this year isn't the passage of a "bad bill." It is the passage of no bill.

Update - Paul Begala offers similar thoughts from last Thursday, only without the river references.

Update 2 - Mark T says no bill this year is an opportunity to oust those dastardly people like Chuck Grassley, Max Baucus, and Kent Conrad. Let's stew on that a bit.

Grassley is up for re-election next year and despite his complete pain in the ass nature right now while representing a state significantly more liberal than Montana, he faces no meaningful challenge. In other words, no high-profile Democrat in Iowa is willing to take the fight to him to make his obstinacy a danger to his political career.

As for the saber rattling at the other two, count me as skeptical. No one has mounted a serious campaign against Max Baucus since Dennis Rehberg and Max emerged from that one the victor.

Running serious electoral campaigns takes a talented candidate, a smart team, and a ton of hard work. It isn't just about posting some comments on blogs. It's about fundraising, door knocking, phone calls, etc. If we can't even make Grassley feel the heat right now, what the hell are liberals going to do elsewhere?

Make no mistake: no bill this year means no bill for a while. It probably also means a significantly more conservative Congress next year and for the indefinite future, so when health care inevitably arises again in 5-10 years, as it will due to necessity, the final bill we get will be far to the right of the possible this year.

I'm not saying don't push for a better bill. I'm just saying don't cut off our noses to spite our faces.

Is the public option on the ropes?

by: Jay Stevens

Sun Aug 16, 2009 at 14:43:27 PM MST

(Hey! How's your health insurance? Cheap? Always pays out its claims? Never dumped you off the policy for little or no reason? Never lost a job?)

That's not so hard to understand.

But apparently it's still a mystery to some. It's a funny kind of "freedom," isn't it? If, as Kent Conrad claims, the public option is "dead," then you'll be free to STFU and take the insurance they design especially for you.

Of course the public option isn't "dead," as Conrad claims. If the public option is stripped from the Senate bill, it's not likely to pass the House without support from the Progressive Caucus, which vowed to vote against any reform legislation without the pubic option.

It's time to start thinking about we can do to support the progressives in Congress, and go after centrist and conservative Democrats to at least stay out of our way. Right now, the question isn't whether someone like Kent Conrad or Max Baucus would favor, support, and fight for a public option, but whether they would filibuster a democratic health care bill from a Democratic president.

To do so, I'll start disseminating information here to groups that are advocating for health care reform, as well as events you can attend. In the meantime, feel free to post the website and information about your favorite organizations in the comments...

Cynthia Wolken on the anti-reform protests at the Bozeman event

by: Jay Stevens

Sun Aug 16, 2009 at 12:33:27 PM MST

I was one of the pro-reform protestors in the free-speech zone outside of President Obama's town hall meeting yesterday on healthcare reform in Belgrade, Montana. I am shocked and disappointed at the mainstream media's coverage of the protest and declarations that both sides acted 'civilly'. Many of the anti-government protesters used violence, threats of violence, and intimidation to stifle the pro-reformists in the exercise of their first amendment right to assemble and protest.

Read it and believe it.

Ray Ring on Obama's Bozeman visit

by: Jay Stevens

Sun Aug 16, 2009 at 12:16:36 PM MST

This being Montana, the traffic jam includes big gravel-hauling trucks. Gravel pits operate on several borders of the airport because the geology is right. When I creep my little truck up to the key intersection, if I turn left I would go to the pit run by the Knife River company, where I could pay about $25 to get myself a Nissan load of what's called "road mix." I make that run once a year to maintain the gravel driveway at my house. I turn right instead, where a deputy standing in the intersection directs the town-hall traffic, creep past more protesters that line this side road, follow another cop's directions and pull off on another mowed field loosely organized for parking.

Read it!

Another essentially useless Rasmussen poll

by: Jay Stevens

Sat Aug 15, 2009 at 10:51:26 AM MST

Two things.

First, "the bill currently working its way through Congress"? Er...which bill? Even those of us following this issue aren't clear on all its provisions and permutations, imagine what everday Americans know, given all the misinformation circling around reform. Again, Steven Taylor:

...public opinion polling is mostly useful under two basic conditions: when there is a clear choice regarding the issue being polled and when public information in the target population is high. Neither of those factor exist in regards to this poll. As such, it really isn't especially useful.

Second, what Bill Clinton said the other night: "People who already have something are certain what they'll lose. People who don't are uncertain about what they'll gain." Once reform passes it will become popular, especially after the effects are felt.

Obama's Bozeman town hall meeting

by: Jay Stevens

Sat Aug 15, 2009 at 07:02:11 AM MST

I'd point you to the various summaries of Obama's speech in Bozeman, but better to read what he said. For me, the biggest news was that he reaffirmed his commitment to the public option, and his continued advocacy for a surtax on the wealthy (as opposed to taxing health care benefits) as a means for paying for health care reform. You'll notice that both stances differ substantially from where Baucus (apparently) stands.

Which brings me to Matt Gouras' excellent analysis on the visit:

By making a rare presidential visit to Montana, Barack Obama has put even more pressure on the rural state's senior senator, Max Baucus, and his panel to produce bipartisan health care legislation in just a month's time.

Given the context of this visit - the fact that Baucus' committee is essentially single-handedly holding up health care and gutting provisions that the Democratic caucus thinks crucial to reform - you can't help but think Obama's visit is intended to put pressure on Max by appealing directly to his constituents. And then there's this from the Gouras report:

For his part, Baucus doesn't appear worried that a bipartisan group of six senators has already blown through several targets for producing a Finance Committee bill. The veteran senator has told Obama that "it will be ready when it's ready" - even if that means waiting until September.

Heh. Tough words, eh?

Probably as a result of signals from the White House, which Jane Hamsher helps us interpret. The WH, through Emmanuel, is blaming Baucus for the logjam in Congress, and he and Jim Messina are being set up to take the fall if all fails, and for any untoward deals cut in Baucus committee with the health-care industry. (Wasn't it in the Indy's profile that Baucus said his whole life prepared him for this legislation? Little did he know how prescient that comment may be...)

So now Obama's in Montana playing "good cop."

Oh, and in case you want a good laugh, check out Montana GOP chair (and Missoulian!) Will Deschamps lame attempts to put forth positive policy on health care:

Deschamps said the current system does have problems, but he doesn't think the federal government ought to be the one trying to fix it. Asked what role central government should play in health care changes, Deschamps said he "didn't have a hard and fast answer."

He said the government should use other means to change health care.

"Maybe they should spend their time in the (public relations) end of it," he said. "They should promote healthy living."

Some people can afford health insurance, but choose not to buy it, he said, particularly young people who don't think they'll get sick.

"There ought to be some way to encourage them to buy health insurance without government interference," he said.

That would lower premiums for everyone else.

Uh...okay...so basically stick with the status quo. Cool.

Governor Howard Dean on health care

by: Jay Stevens

Fri Aug 14, 2009 at 10:22:29 AM MST

I recorded this thing, but just want to share some notes I took while the Governor spoke this morning. He had some very interesting things to say, especially about the Tea Baggers and how we should frame the debate...

By the way, Dean said that the public option was "vital" to health care reform, and that its inclusion in a Congressional bill was likely, if not already foregone...

The Town Hall protests, said Dean, are not about health care. It's expressed anger. Here are the three reasons behind it:

(1) The GOP has been running on anger for 30 years. They're good at stirring it up.
(2) These are not the demographic that voted for Obama. Essentially it was the younger generation that won the race -- the Teabaggers are a shrinking group, becoming increasingly marginalized, thus evoking the anger. The smaller this group, the angrier it'll get.
(3)They're not accustomed to looking at presidents who look like Obama.

More on the generational point. Dean said the older generations -- the ones involved in the protests -- are more prone to polarization. The younger gen, not so much. (Clinton described it as a "communitarian" crowd.)

Also, you know you're winning the debate when the other side has to make stuff up. And don't bother countering or confronting the rhetoric; again, it's not about health care.

Dean did acknowledge that not starting with single-payer entering the health care debate was a mistake. He called the strategy a "hangover from the old Democratic party," an attempt to jettison a contentious provision as a peace offering in the bid to craft a bipartisan bill. But the GOP isn't interested in participating. (Leaving the House Blue Dogs to negotiate for moderate and conservative Americans.)

The public option is the compromise.

Without the public option, there's no health care reform (just health insurance reform).

The public option allows Americans to have a choice, no one's compelled to try the public option. Reform, then, would happen at the pace American consumers themselves would set. Dean said it was the best health care reform proposal he's seen because of it.

Message to Congress:

Let Americans choose! The public option allows Americans to choose their kind of health care for themselves. Do not let Congress and insurance companies choose your health care for you!

Either you're with us, or you're against us. Either you're with the American people -- your employers -- or you're with the insurance companies. We'll count and examine every vote after this is done, and take action accordingly.

Howard Dean health care town hall

by: Jay Stevens

Fri Aug 14, 2009 at 06:05:47 AM MST

More later...

Clinton on health care reform

by: Jay Stevens

Fri Aug 14, 2009 at 06:03:37 AM MST

Good times last night. I wouldn't call Clinton a great speaker -- he pretty much winged a good bit of his talk -- but it was lively and interesting, and he again demonstrated he's hard to fluster, handling a few hecklers savagely...

Anyhow. He talked about a lot, but I thought I'd related some comments he made about health care reform, seeing as they're, you know, relevant here at this blog...and these are just based on notes I took last night...

Town Hall demonstrations are meant to terrify moderate and conservative Democrats: the GOP isn't strong or relevant enough to defeat bill...

Three hurdles for health care reform: (1) It's complex. Can't explain it easily to voters. (2) The CBO doesn't reckon long-term costs and savings, so the bill's been slammed by its estimates. (3) It's hard to budge the status quo. "People who already have something are certain what they'll lose. People who don't are uncertain about what they'll gain."

Health care reform is not only morally right, it's imperative, politically, for Democrats.

After a bill is signed, approval for the reform will go up because Americans are an optimistic people. After a year or so, when the effects are felt, approval will explode. Get something done.

In one of the more interesting turns in the talk was when Clinton addressed his own efforts at reform. He talked about how "the victors wrote the history" on his efforts, citing two aspects:

-- Claim: The bill was a 1,000-page-+ monstrosity. Complex and unwieldy. Reality: proposed bill was a simplification of existing code on health care, actually cut more than 400 pages from the original law.
--Claim: The effort failed b/c the administration dictated the bill, didn't allow Congress to write it. Reality: House committee chair (Hoyer?) asked the administration to write the bill, b/c he worried that Congressional reps didn't know enough about the issue, and that they'd be picked off one-by-one by lobbyists...

In short, if this effort fails, that's the kiss of death for reform. Those that defeated the bill will write the reasons why. (Right now, that's the Tea Bagger crowd. I imagine the media will say Americans don't want a government insurance solution...)

That is, it's imperative to something passed...

A little of the ol' "Okie Talk"

by: Jay Stevens

Wed Aug 12, 2009 at 09:13:38 AM MST

I'm betting this woman will be there:

Parading with Bitterroot Valley Republican groups in her Hummer, Cathy Kulonis said she was exercising her First Amendment rights Saturday when she hoisted a sign reading "No Mo Bro" during Creamery Picnic festivities here.

In response to angry requests to remove the sign, and contentions that it carried unsavory racial overtones regarding President Barack Obama, Kulonis held her ground, referring to those who complained as "red-faced maniacs" and "liberal extremists."

When the parade committee chairman requested that she remove her sign, she once again stood fast and refused to put it away.

She claims the sign was just "Okie talk."

"This issue is not about racism," Kulonis wrote in an e-mail to the Ravalli Republic. "It is not even about me. It is about control. A useless effort by the left to silence me."

"No one intimidates me," she continued. "I will not bow to or obey the pc police. I am afraid of no one. I was born for a time as this. Opinions and names do not change the facts or who I am. I say, 'Watch this Patriot Act!' "

Kulonis said it doesn't bother her that some interpreted her sign as racist.

"I can't help what people think and someone being offended is not my responsibility," she said. "Everything I did, I did with my own kind heart."

Racist, paranoid, self-obsessed, and oblivious: these are the people we're dealing with...

Update: This isn't the first time LiTW has mentioned Kulonis. The "Okie talker" got into a little set-to outside an abortion clinic when she blocked the sidewalk in front of the clinic. That little incident led to the abusurdist SB 497, a bill that made it a crime to "obstruct" anti-abortion demonstrations at clinics.

Steve M has more on Kulonis' extremist activities.

Is single payer health care unpopular? Or misunderstood?

by: Jay Stevens

Tue Aug 11, 2009 at 09:08:03 AM MST

What to make of this? Without seeing the question, it's hard to make much of a conclusion. That's because the public's support of single-payer health care varies wildly depending how the question is asked. (Here's a link to previous polls for an illustration.) In fact, this Rasmussen poll is the first that found single-payer backers in the minority. Is it an outlier - or the result of months of Republican fear-mongering? Certainly those polled aren't overly familiar with the details of single-payer health care: only 24 percent thought that a single-payer system would lower costs.

In another, related poll, Rasmussen found that 51 percent "fear" the government more than private insurance companies. Which is kind of astounding, given that insurance companies have neither arms nor prisons. This poll, of course, is being used to explain why single-payer health insurance is unpopular; but those results belie the polls on Medicare users, who rate their insurance and care consistently higher than those who have private insurance. And we've seen how people react to the idea that Medicare benefits might be threatened. Yet a number of people don't realize that Medicare is a government program.

I have to agree with Steven Taylor:

...public opinion polling is mostly useful under two basic conditions: when there is a clear choice regarding the issue being polled and when public information in the target population is high. Neither of those factor exist in regards to this poll. As such, it really isn't especially useful.

The astonishing ignorance around health care reform is reflected in the right-wing blog reaction to the Rasmussen poll.

Gaius of Blue Crab Boulevard writes, "Rasmussen's latest poll shows ObamaCare dropping like a rock," while Howie from the Jawa Report exults in the poll, chirping "Go ahead congress [sic], make the voters [sic] day, I double dog dare you." Of course, that single-payer health care has anything to do with any of the reforms being batted around in Congress has to come as a complete shock to single-payer advocates. We've discussed the details of the various plans ad naseum on this blog, so you know single-payer health care ain't in the equation.

Gateway Pundit ratchets up the ignorance: "Only 32% of Americans favor Obama's plan for a single-payer system," GP writes. "This video shows how ordinary Americans feel about getting socialized health care rammed down their throats by this Congress." Likewise, PowerLine's John confuses single-payer health care with socialized medicine:

Today's Rasmussen survey has data that shed considerable light on the health care debate. The question posed to likely voters was whether they favor a single-payer health care system. ("Single payer" is a euphemism for socialized medicine.) Americans overwhelmingly reject government medicine, 57-32 percent.

Of course, we've been over this before. "Socialized medicine" means that the government owns and runs all of the health care facilities and employs the health care workers. (Think VA.) "Single-payer health care" is a system where there's essentially one insurance provider. (It doesn't even have to be a government insurance provider.) Health care facilities and workers remain as they are.

Other little tidbits of ignorance abound in the reactions, too. Take this:

Obama says you can keep your plan if you like it (interestingly, he keeps saying that the entire system is broken and sucks, yet, you can keep the same health insurance that is broken and sucks?), and, he is correct. You can. Until you decide you want to make a change, even a tiny one. Then you must move into a government approved one. If you work for certain really big companies, you have a 5 year grace period before any change forces you into a government approved plan.

I have no idea what William Teach is talking about. "Government approved" plan? All insurance plans are already "government approved," in that they have to conform to the regulation and laws governing insurance in the various states. Or does he mean, a "government run" public option? Which is also false. I assume he's unclear on the concept of the Health Insurance Exchange, where people meeting certain criteria (right now in the written House proposal, those working in very small companies, the uninsured, and the unemployed) have the right to essentially shop around for the best plan, which might include a public option. But no one will be compelled to take any particular plan - although there's likely to be a mandate to take some kind of plan.

All-in-all, the profound ignorance seeping from these blogs is astonishing. And these are supposed to be the people who are, you know, actually interested in politics and policy. No wonder Tea Baggers are running around interrupting public meetings with slogans about "socialized medicine" and other delusional claims. They have no friggin' idea what they're actually protesting, do they?

The real death panel

by: Jay Stevens

Mon Aug 10, 2009 at 18:37:08 PM MST

Don't talk to me about death panels, Sarah Palin....

In your free market wonderland everyone somehow manages to get healthcare, even those who are poor or live in isolated areas, though the poor and isolated in your own state required assistance from the federal government.

And despite all of this, you appear blithely unaware that the free market healthcare system we have now does, indeed, have "death panels." I've been part of a death panel conversation. I know about death panels.

You have no idea what it's like to be called into a sterile conference room with a hospital administrator you've never met before and be told that your mother's insurance policy will only pay for 30 days in ICU. You can't imagine what it's like to be advised that you need to "make some decisions," like whether your mother should be released "HTD" which is hospital parlance for "home to die," or if you want to pay out of pocket to keep her in the ICU another week. And when you ask how much that would cost you are given a number so impossibly large that you realize there really are no decisions to make. The decision has been made for you. "Living will" or no, it doesn't matter. The bank account and the insurance policy have trumped any legal document.

If this isn't a "death panel" I don't know what is.

H/t, digby, who adds this:

...since Good People, Real Americans, have health insurance, only bad people have to worry about this, which is how it should be. The problem is that if the government takes over they're going ration by taking away the Good People's health care and giving it to welfare queens and illegal immigrants who don't deserve it.

(All Good People have health are? Maybe not. Or maybe Good People solicit donations after mauling ministers...er, I mean, after a mauling by union "thugs"...though he looked pretty sprightly after the "attack." Funny how he's wheelchair bound and unable to speak the next day? D*mn those lingering funny bone injuries...)

Does mediocre reform lead to more reform?

by: Jay Stevens

Mon Aug 10, 2009 at 14:03:50 PM MST

We have an unfortunate tendency to think of policy reform as episodic rather than continual. The process of reform is sold as a legislative Big Bang rather than an ongoing effort with lots of different policies all building on one another. This is as much the fault of reformers, who need to increase public support for their policies, as it is of reform's opponents.

But it doesn't make much sense. There's a lot of commentary about whether the health-care reform bills under consideration will do everything that's required to repair our health-care system. There's not a lot of commentary about whether the the bills under consideration will be a step forward in reforming our health-care system and thus make positive changes easier in 2013, and 2019, and 2022. But that's probably the more important question.

To me that's key. Will this reform lead to more? Is it heading in the right direction?

Obviously Klein does. He even cites Massachusetts' push away from fee-for-service payments to a "coordinated care strategy" as evidence that the stirring of reform, even if imperfect, necessarily leads to more. (See this link [pdf]  from Steve W for a challenge to the idea that Massachusetts health-care reform actually works.)

That said, I think a lot of opponents on the left oppose this push for reform because they think of reform as "episodic." Or worse, that the reform is leading us the wrong way. At least, that's what I interpret, say, JC to be saying when he writes, "Is it worth it for 40 million more to get insurance, if that results in the insurance industry getting a larger stranglehold on healthcare? That is a fair point to debate, and a necessary one."

The other day, I essentially posed the question whether the reform proposed in Congress - such as it is - should be supported, or killed. Naturally, as health care topics do on this blog, it engendered a lot of...er..."discussion." Whatever. I think we can all agree that the reforms as being proposed in Congress don't go far enough. The question is, would a health-care bill from this Congress lead to more? Or will it effectively blacken the idea of reform and cause corporate capitalism to entrench into our health-care system even further? And to me, that's the key in whether this effort should go on, or should die a slow and gruesome death.

For me, the bottom line is this: the reform's popularity. If reform is packaged so that it helps only a few, but disturbs the many, we're screwed.

Change the employer mandate to an individual mandate? Screwed.

Adopt reform that doesn't have near-universal access to the Health Insurance Exchange and a public option? Screwed.

You? What do you think?

The unberable lightness of being obtuse

by: Jay Stevens

Mon Aug 10, 2009 at 12:59:48 PM MST

When Boxer grilled Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice about what personal price the childless Rice paid for the Iraq war, Boxer later boasted that she was "speaking truth to power." But when angry voters try to do the same with elected officials, whether they're heckling them or just showing up, Boxer wants the media to investigate.

It's laughable: Democrats discrediting protests because - ooooooh - they're organized. Last year, weren't these same folks guffawing about Jesus being a community organizer?

This kind of "they-did-it-too" dodge plays especially well to traditional media outlets, with their predilection towards he-said-she-said style of "objectivity." It's especially specious because the two kinds of protest are not at all alike.

The Tea Baggers are not heroically standing up for freedom - they're operating under false premises, that the health care reform means sending babies and elderly off to die in the grinding machinery of socialized medicine.

The protests are based on lies created and spread - not by community organizers - but by political operatives and popular television pundits and intended to end discourse, not foster openness and accountability.

That's quite a different cry from the anti-war movement, which was grossly ignored by the media, but essentially based on truths the media were reluctant to acknowledge. (Wasn't Saunders here during the Bush administration? Doesn't she remember the real depredations committed by our government, not the fantastical, illusory crimes birthed in the lurid, molten imagination of Glenn Beck?) And certainly no one would claim that Code Pink for all of its stunts actually shut down discussion the war -- right?

No one's calling for the Tea Baggers to be silent. Dissent is patriotic. But bullying people at rallies, shouting down other points of view, silencing debate? - that's not patriotic.

Let it be their Waterloo

by: Jay Stevens

Sat Aug 08, 2009 at 08:11:00 AM MST

You see, there really are two sides to every story. That doesn't mean that you can not 'pick' one of those sides, strongly believe you are right, and actually be right. It just means that every time you take a position on a matter, you had better understand that there is a different position somewhere that someone else thinks is right....

...We've never, ever seen anyone one with a leftist agenda disrupt any sort of a government meeting, have we? That's because they're nice, and people on the right are "violent" and "authoritarian." Remember a few years ago when there was a study or a few studies claiming that people leaning right are dumber than liberals? (By the way, Mark has pointed me to "studies" too...no doubt funded by tax dollars!) Who was the last Republican Presidential candidate who was not generally mocked as stupid? Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, these men are geniuses. Reagan, an amiable dunce. President Bush (W), a Yale graduate is an idiot.

Yes...how...how...reasonable! And it's...true...sort of...

But wait. What's the "other" side of the story? The outrage over the recent spate of Republican-led protests isn't about acknowledging conservative opposition to Democratic health care reform. It's about a concerted effort - by quasi-legal means - to kill reform. Not to alter it, not to influence it, not to offer compromise, or to put forth a conservative solution - or even a coherent worldview, competing ideas, an alluring image of what's right and proper. No, this is plain, politics, brutish and ugly, not meant to open the doors of democracy and debate, but to slam them closed.

And this isn't some kind of tit-for-tat: the disturbances of Baucus' committee hearings on health-care by single-payer advocates was in favor of widening debate in the hopes of forcing representatives to at least consider a powerful and beautiful idea. Those disturbances weren't thuggish or malicious or wrapped in lies and racist, nativist fury.

It's a prominent conservative repeating AM-radio canards to her gullible followers. It's Republican political operatives masquerading as "ordinary moms" at protests to foster the illusion of a seething mass. It's death threats made to union members. It's a anti-health-care-reform activist urging his followers to "carry" and "hurt badly" ACORN/SEIU members that oppose them at protests. It's a concerted effort by the Republican party to deliberately mislead Americans as to what the health care legislation actually contains.

What's it all about, anyway?

There are days when I look at the modesty of the plan -- which would cover 40 million people, impose some small taxes on the rich, curb the worst excesses of the insurance industry and not affect the overwhelming majority of people at all -- and the pitch of the rhetoric and really wish that the plan on the table was actually worth this much controversy and rage. It is evidence for the view that the difference between proposing something really ambitious and something pretty modest is that the modest plan gets you more industry support. The political mobilization and polarization will be the same either way.

Back to the Steven Pearlstein op-ed. "The recent attacks by Republican leaders and their ideological fellow-travelers, on the effort to reform the health-care system," writes Pearlstein, "have been so misleading, so disingenuous, that they could only spring from a cynical effort to gain partisan political advantage....They've become political terrorists, willing to say or do anything to prevent the country from reaching a consensus on one of its most serious domestic problems."

After describing what's actually in the various proposals (as opposed to the blustering hyperbole and lies supplied by the right), Pearlstein concludes:

Health reform is a test of whether this country can function once again as a civil society -- whether we can trust ourselves to embrace the big, important changes that require everyone to give up something in order to make everyone better off. Republican leaders are eager to see us fail that test. We need to show them that no matter how many lies they tell or how many scare tactics they concoct, Americans will come together and get this done.

If health reform is to be anyone's Waterloo, let it be theirs.

Sadly, the likely reform will be as Klein described it, "pretty modest," and not "worth this controversey and rage." It's hard to muster the troops to support something devoid of meaning and largely inconsequential. Unless, of course, you poison the troops with birth certificates and Red-baiting.

To kill the bill, or not to kill the bill...

by: Jay Stevens

Fri Aug 07, 2009 at 08:27:24 AM MST

Washington D.C.: As a progressive who strongly wants a public healthcare option (I've given up on advocating for single-payer, which would be my ideal world situation), should I be content with a plan that has no public option but has co-ops instead? How important is it for progressives to fight for a public options? Should we be willing to sacrifice it if necessary for passage of a bill?

Ezra Klein: Content? No. You should try to get the best bill you can and be content with nothing less. Should you kill a bill that will cover 40 million Americans and stop insurers from ever again rescinding coverage or discriminating based on preexisting conditions? Definitely not.

There are two things happening here. One is that reformers are trying to make people's lives better. The other is that reformers are trying to get the best bill they can. If the former condition is met and the latter condition is not, that's still progress.

Discuss.

Baucus, Obama, and "bipartisanship"

by: Jay Stevens

Wed Aug 05, 2009 at 07:28:45 AM MST

The September 15th deadline for a bipartisan healthcare bill isn't likely to be honored, Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) predicted Tuesday.

Kyl attempted to call a bluff by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), who said last week that if he hadn't reached a consensus with Republicans by mid-September, he would force a bill through without Republican support.

"He's set several other deadlines too, and he hasn't been able to meet them," Kyl said. "And I worry a little bit that by setting that deadline he could be setting himself up for not the best situation - let's put it that way."

mcjoan:

Of course he's not going to meet his deadline because Chuck Grassley takes his marching orders from Mitch McConnell and his marching orders are to kill reform. So why this bipartisan kabuki has to continue now that everybody knows that it's kabuki is beyond me.

Meanwhile Obama quietly prepares Democrats for abandoning attempts at bipartisanship:

President Obama urged Democratic senators on Tuesday to persevere in trying to get a bipartisan deal on health care, but left open the possibility that they might have to pass a bill with only Democratic votes if Republicans stood in the way.

And there's your political context for Obama's August 14 visit!  

Obama coming to Bozemn

by: Jay Stevens

Wed Aug 05, 2009 at 07:18:11 AM MST

Verrrrry interesting....

Keep an eye on Obama's message. I've argued that Baucus is being cut out of the health-care reform process thanks to his insistence on hashing out a "bipartisan" bill behind closed doors, and the likelihood he's eviscerating Democratic provisions - like the public option. Is Obama undercutting Max...in his own backyard?

And doing some fly fishing? Let's hope the Good Guv won't be teaching...